Two crises

Thomas Sowell

2/14/2006 12:05:00 AM - Thomas Sowell

This nation is facing two crises -- one phony and one real. Both in the media and in politics, the phony crisis is getting virtually all the attention.

Like the French official in "Casablanca," politicians and much of the media are shocked, shocked, to discover that the government has been listening in on calls involving international terrorist networks. Congressional leaders of both parties have in fact known this for years without saying a word.

Only after the New York Times published the news and made a big noise about it have politicians begun to declare their shock.

That is not the only thing that makes this big uproar phony. The same people who are going ballistic over what they spin as "domestic spying" never went ballistic over one of the most gross examples of genuine domestic spying during the Clinton years.

Hundreds of raw FBI files on Republicans were sent to the Clinton White House, in violation of laws and for no higher purpose than having enough dirt on enough people to intimidate political opponents. But domestic spying against Republicans did not shock nearly as many people as intercepting phone calls from terrorists.

The current hue and cry that is being whipped up into a media crisis is part of a whole pattern of short-sighted political obstruction and a futile venting of spleen.

What could have been more short-sighted and petty than the Congressional Democrats holding up the official electoral college vote last year confirming the re-election of President Bush? It was the first time such a challenge was made since 1877.

Democrats knew from the outset that they had no chance of preventing Bush's re-election from being confirmed in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Moreover, since he was already President, they could not even delay his taking office. It was obstruction for the sake of obstruction -- and to "do something" to appeal to the Bush-hatred of their political base. It was the same thing when the Democrats obstructed and delayed the confirmation vote on Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State and later the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

They knew from the outset that these were just futile temper tantrums that would not affect the outcome in the slightest.

One of the ugliest examples of the same mindset was painfully visible at the recent funeral of Coretta Scott King, where a solemn occasion was turned into a series of political cheap shots against a President who had come to honor the memory of Mrs. King.

The truly dangerous aspect of this temper tantrum politics is its undermining the government of the United States in its dealings with foreign powers and international terrorist networks.

There are nations and movements that respect only force or the threat of force. Regardless of anyone's politics, the President of the United States is the only one who can launch that force.

In the early days of the Iraq war, when it was clear to all that American military force would be unleashed against our enemies, Libya suddenly agreed to abandon its nuclear program and other countries backed off their hostile stances.

But when our domestic obstructionists began undermining the President and dividing the country, they were undermining the credibility of American power. North Korea's government-controlled media gave big play to Senator John Kerry's speeches against the U.S. hard line on the development of North Korean nuclear weapons.

Obviously this all-out attempt to damage the President at all costs makes any threat of the use of military force less credible with the country divided.

Whether President Bush will in fact use military force as a last resort to prevent an unending nightmare of nuclear weapons in the hands of Iranian fanatics and international terrorists is something only the future will tell.

It would be far better if the threat of force were credible enough that actual force would not have to be used. But divisive politics have undermined the credibility of any such threat. That can narrow the choices to killing people in Iran or leaving ourselves and our posterity at the mercy of hate-filled and suicidal fanatics with nukes.

That is the real crisis that is being overshadowed by the phony political crisis.